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By
Jack Moore

The Office of Personnel Management is helping agencies come up with ways to
recruit new federal hires from the pipeline of national-service programs, such as
the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps.

In July, President Barack Obama called for expanding national
volunteer opportunities by finding ways to connect the broad network of
national and community-service organizations with federal agencies and their
missions. As part of that effort, OPM was tasked with coming up with recruiting
strategies agencies can use to recruit new hires with past experience in
national-service programs.

"As we face challenges ahead, the need to bring exceptional talent into public
service has never been greater," OPM Director Katherine Archuleta wrote in a Nov.
15 memo to the heads of agencies and
departments. "Participants in our national service programs have transferable
skills, work experience in areas aligned with agency missions ... and a commitment
to continue serving the public through the career civilian service. They are a
source of talent that can enhance an agency's workforce capacity to achieve its
mission and should be included as part of your overall recruitment strategy."

Among the strategies listed:

Agencies should identify positions, jobs skills and future hiring demands in
their workplaces "that align with national service experiences."

Agencies should also develop relationships with the Corporation for National
Community Service (CNCS), which runs the AmeriCorps program, as well as the Peace
Corps "to better understand the value of national service experience to the
federal workforce," the memo stated.

Agencies should work with CNCS to conduct outreach on open positions and
publicize job postings in the national-service field.

OPM said it would develop standardized language agencies could include in job
announcements emphasizing "the value of national service experience to your
agency." Archuleta also said OPM will host a symposium next month to help agencies
get acquainted with the various national-service organizations.